Aportación de la UE:

Coordinado en:

Tema(s):

Convocatoria de propuestas:

Régimen de financiación:

IIF - Marie Curie actions-Incoming International Fellowships

Objetivo

Little is currently known about the mechanisms by which new species arise in marine pelagic environments. One important aspect of the process of speciation is the erection of reproductive isolating barriers between diverging populations. Here I propose a research program to investigate the character and evolution of barriers to heterospecific mating in planktonic marine copepods.

Specifically, I will address the following three objectives, 1) to identify which chemical, hydromechanical, behavioural, and/or morphological characters serve as pre-mating isolating barriers between closely related planktonic copepod species, 2) to determine whether reproductive isolating characters between closely related species exhibit higher levels of divergence in regions of biogeographic range overlap (reproductive character displacement), suggesting preliminary evidence for selection acting to increase pre-mating isolation between species, and 3) to determine whether the level of gene flow between conspecific sympatric and allopatric populations plays an important role in the evolution of reproductive character displacement.

In order to address these objectives, I will focus the research on six closely related, partially sympatric (co-occurring) calanoid copepod species in the genera Centropages, Temora, and Pseudocalanus that are well-studied ecological dominants in the northern North Atlantic Ocean. The research will employ an integrated approach combining behavioural, genetic and morphological studies.

Research proposed here will be one of the first attempts to identify reproductive isolating characters and to understand the evolution of barriers to heterospecific mating in planktonic marine species. The proposed research will increase the scientific excellence of the European research area through devopment of a novel research theme at the host laboratory (DIFRES, Denmark) and initiation of international collaboration in the research field.